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Ullal - An account
And the Abakka RaniTo the north of Kasaragod, where the historical borders of Malabar ends, is Manjeshwar and a little north of it, but south of Mangalore, bordering the Netravati River and facing the...
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The Chalappuram Gang and the Ameen Lodge
Those turbulent years, Calicut (1920-34)Calicut under British governance was a different place than you see it today. My own memories of childhood in Calicut take me to the days I spent with my aunt at...
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Hans Raj - The British Approver
And his role in the Amritsar MassacreI spent a considerable amount of time reading various published accounts of the infamous Jallianwala Bagh massacre. A summary of the events that transpired and an...
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An American Consulate in Kerala?
Abbot L Dow 1880, and the story of AlleppeyDifficult to believe, right? But that was indeed the case. An early US representation in India did exist for a while at Alleppey, and this started first with...
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The Fathul Mubiyn, Qadi Mohammad and the Zamorin
A study of the Fathul Mubyin, a war poem – Calicut 1550-1590In a clamor to analyze and study the Tuhfat Al Mujahideen by Sheikh Zainuddin, most historians forgot a very interesting companion text which...
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The Moplah Rebellion 1921 – A British Soldier's viewpoint
Donald Sinderby in MalabarThere are so many books with deal with the revolt in Malabar, or what the British Raj termed a rebellion (i.e. waging war against the crown) with a purpose to clamp down the...
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Travancore lines – a Reality Check
The Nedumkotta fortifications - A discussionThe Travancore lines were according to some historians, first planned by Marthanda Varma duly assisted by his general De Lannoy and built by the Travancore...
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The Zamorin and a Padre (1587-1620)
And Umara Charare, the convertWhile we studied the stories of Kunhali IV, the conversion of the King of Tanur and so on, we came across the fact that the reigning Zamorin during those years had allowed...
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Chowakaran Musa and the Mapla Por of Bombay
Musa Mapla, the EIC and his Bombay residenceMany decades ago, when I was working in Bombay and a bachelor, I would walk aimlessly through the Colaba, Ballard estate and Flora fountain areas often,...
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Malabar -War years 1941-1944
A famine and the cholera epidemic....1943Everybody talked about the Great War as the summer months of 1942 scorched the southern regions of India. The eastern allied bastions fell one after another, by...
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The Kalikavu incident - 1915
An attempt on Collector CA Innes’s lifeSome articles ago, we studied the impact of the Turkish Khalifa, the Khilafat movement and its effects on the Malabar populace, culminating in the violence of...
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The Rowther community
On the origins and history of the Rowther MuslimsRavuttar, Rowther, RavutherMost people from Palghat would recognize this community name, for a number of them are settled in various parts of the...
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The many mysteries behind the Cheng Ho Voyages
Much is written about the voyages of Cheng Ho. In fact there is even a voluminous book just listing bibliography of published works detailing Cheng Ho’s life and time. But how much of all that is...
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Farrukhi – A capital shortlived
Tipu Sultan’s new Malabar Capital and the Farrukhi mintThere is some mystery involved in the town of Feroke, and its antiquity boasts of it being the capital of Tipu’s Malabar, though quite short...
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Maryam Zamani – Still an enigma
Jahangir’s mother and GuardianThis is a mystery that had endured for many a decade and every historian working on Moghul history and Agra has come up with their own twist to it. When I started on this...
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Robert Adams - Governor of EIC Malabar
The ‘Notorious’ country trader Robert AdamsApril 8th 1738 , an obscure epitaph for a British gentleman came to the notice of observant readers - At his House in Cavendish-Square, aged 64, Robert Adams,...
View ArticleThe Renegade Portuguese Moplah Corsair - Dom Pedro Rodrigues
A story of Revenge, Ali Marakkar March 1600 – The Kunjali IV had just surrendered to the Zamorin. Andre Furtado reneging on his agreement, dragged Kunjali away, while the Zamorin’s Nair cohorts tried...
View ArticleUneen ‘Ramasimhan' Saheb’s story
Some years ago, Nidheesh introduced this story to history enthusiasts. It was certainly a sad tale, and a classic case where bigotry and fanaticism were at a peak in Eranad. The exact details are...
View ArticleThe Mystery of the Zamorin’s Coronation Stone
And its Chinese connections Those perusing texts written by personnel accompanying the Portuguese navigators and administrators after the 15th century may have come across mentions of a sacred stone...
View ArticleNapoleon, India and the Russian intrigues – Part 1
The Oriental conquest for the Golden Sparrow 1801 We are all so used to speaking English these days, but can you imagine a prospect of a French speaking India? Well it could have happened if Napoleon...
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